


deep breaths

by DJBunn3



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future Fish, Breaking Up & Making Up, Denial, Drinking, Fire, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Post-Break Up, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 09:01:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13143372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DJBunn3/pseuds/DJBunn3
Summary: “Sousuke!Don’t go in there!”Sousuke glances back for just a second, watching as Makoto jumps out of the still moving firetruck. He looks winded and panicked, and for a second Sousuke just stops to stare at him. It feels like forever since they last saw each other face to face, even though only a week has gone by. But then Rin’s cries break through to him again, and he snaps out of his trance.“Stop!” Makoto exclaims as he turns towards the building again, reaching out as if to hold him in place. It’s too late. His mind’s already made up.





	deep breaths

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ishka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishka/gifts).



After the fight, Sousuke doesn’t see Makoto around for a while.

His toothbrush sits alone in the cup by the sink the morning after, which means Makoto had come by and grabbed his things while Sousuke was out. He feels an odd urge to throw the cup across the room, but he doesn’t. Broken glass isn’t something he needs to deal with right now. He should make breakfast, get ready for work, head into the station and wait for it to blow over. He should move on, keep going, wait until he’s had time to sort out his thoughts.

He calls in sick.

 _“What? You’re serious?”_ Rin snaps over the phone. _“You haven’t been sick in two years!”_

“What are you doing on the phone line?” Sousuke replies, changing the subject tactfully. “What happened to Gou?”

 _“She’s takin’ the day off,”_ Rin says. _“Going to some concert later on or something. I guess she needs a full day to prepare.”_

“Sounds like someone else I know,” Sousuke says flatly, then hangs up.

He should clean up the dishes from the night before--the ones that lay untouched on the table, still filled with their cold, uneaten dinner. And he should probably go back to the bathroom and brush his teeth and shave, and then heat up some leftovers and clean up the apartment.

He does none of these things. Instead he lies back down on his bed and stares at the ceiling. He’s tired; it had been a busy week. They’d arrested three teens for messing around with illegal fireworks, only to have their parents come in with their metaphorical guns blazing, threatening to sue and protest and who knows what else. It’s not like they haven’t dealt with stuff like that before, but it’s still an almost unbearable amount of emails, paperwork, phone calls, and explanations.

He probably should have known better than to invite Makoto over after work, but he’d hoped it would help him relax. Makoto is a calming presence most of the time, and Sousuke usually enjoys having him over, but after a long day he usually likes to have a little time to himself before he’s up for socializing.

He means to get up in a few minutes, he really does, but his motivation seems to have flown out the window (or out the door, along with Makoto), and soon enough he finds himself drifting off to sleep again.

* * *

He wakes hours later to a loud three bangs coming from outside. He’s content to just ignore it, but when seven more knocks come all at once he relents, rolling off of his bed and running a hand over his face. He still needs to shave, and he probably has terrible morning breath, but he doesn’t care about any of that right now.

He doesn’t even bother to wonder if it’s Makoto at the door. Makoto doesn’t knock like that, and he wouldn’t come over so soon after a fight. So it’s no surprise when Rin comes barging into his apartment the second he opens the door.

“Come on in,” Sousuke grumbles, then makes a face. Yep, definitely morning breath.

“I had to deal with those teenage fuckers and their parents for _two and a half hours straight_. By _myself_! And where were you this whole time? Asleep!”

“Are you off already?” Sousuke asks, staring in disbelief at the clock on the microwave. There’s no way it’s six in the afternoon. He can’t have actually slept through a whole day.

“ _Yes_ I’m off already. Are you really sick, or did you leave all the work to me on purpose?”

Sousuke shrugs. “Sorry. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Yeah, real great timing,” Rin snaps, then pauses and stares at Sousuke. “Have you been in bed all day?”

“I got up once.”

“Jeez, what happened to you?”

Sousuke sighs. “Nothing. I was tired.”

“Yeah, right. You wouldn’t take a whole day off just because you were tired.” Rin squints at him in confusion, frowning. “Is everything okay? You seem off.”

“It’s nothing,” Sousuke says quickly, brushing it off. “I guess I just needed a break.”

Rin stares at him for a few seconds more, but luckily he lets it go. “Alright,” he says. “I came over to see if you wanted to get a drink, but…”

“A drink sounds good,” Sousuke says. “Just give me a few minutes, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.” Rin sinks down on the couch with a sigh, looking around absently. He doesn’t ask why Makoto isn’t over, which is a relief, but at the same time probably means he’s already heard about the fight. Makoto and Rin were friends in high school, so it would make sense if one of their mutual friends told him.

Sousuke heads to the bathroom to clean up, then throws on a pair of clean jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt. He doesn’t bother with shaving or brushing his hair, figuring nobody in a dingy bar at six in the evening has any right to judge him.

They go to their usual bar, a place with a nice low-light ambiance and a stage for live music performances. It’s not too crowded, luckily, and there are a few open barstools near the back of the bar. Rin orders for both of them, since Sousuke never can remember which beer he likes best, and the two of them make small talk while they wait.

It occurs to him, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he hasn’t eaten everything today, and he should probably order something solid if he wants to avoid a hangover later on. But he doesn’t feel hungry--in fact, the thought of food is unpleasantly unappealing right now--so he leaves the hangover problem to Tomorrow Sousuke.

“Really though, what’s up?” Rin asks a little while later, slightly slurring (because he really can’t handle his alcohol, despite what he claims).

“Nothing,” Sousuke says, reaching for his beer. He’s not drunk enough to talk about Makoto leaving yet, and even if he was, he doesn’t think he’d want to. He’s still letting it sink in himself, and if Makoto and his weird friend Nanase haven’t told Rin yet, he’s going to be thankful for the silence.

“I just wasn’t feeling great,” he adds as an afterthought.

“You’re such a liar,” Rin says, rolling his eyes like the surly teenager he secretly still is. “You can talk to me you know.”

“I know,” Sousuke replies. _But not yet._

They spend a couple of hours at the bar, drinking and talking about work and pretending that everything is fine. Sousuke even feels a little better for a second, but his mind always drifts back to Makoto. It’s not like he means to keep thinking about the fight, but it’s always there at the back of his head.

By the time they head home, Sousuke isn’t feeling much better than he had in the morning. He’s got an empty feeling in his stomach that has nothing to do with his eating habits, and a headache that has nothing to do with alcohol, and despite sleeping throughout most of the day, he’s exhausted. He manages to wash the dishes from the night before and put in a load of laundry before lying down with a book he has no intention of reading. Before long he feels his eyes drift closed again.

* * *

Sousuke’s new strategy for coping with Makoto leaving is, essentially, to try and forget about it. He’s already wasted a whole day moping, and he’d still felt terrible in the morning, so he might as well try to be productive while he’s suffering. Obviously he can’t just ignore the huge gaping hole in his life forever, but he’s sure as hell going to try.

It’s not easy to not think about Makoto, who’d been such a huge part of his life until now, but he finds that it gets easier the busier he is. So he shows up to work early the next day, freshly shaven with a thermos of coffee in hand, and politely asks his chief for more work.

“Are you sure you’re up for it?” Chief Kagari asks, looking up from her own work. “You were out sick yesterday, weren’t you?”

“I’m feeling better,” Sousuke promises. “I can work on reports for the fireworks incident. It really won’t be a problem.”

“If you say so,” Kagari says, shuffling through a pile of folders before handing a smaller stack of them over to him. “Don’t take on too much, though, Yamazaki. You’ll make yourself sick again.”

Sousuke doesn’t reply, turning back and bringing the papers to his desk. He can at least make it up to Rin and get all this paperwork out of the way, and when he’s done it’ll probably be time for him to head out on a patrol.

 _This will work_ , he thinks, opening the first file. He can keep busy for the time being, and once he’s done he just has to find something else to occupy his time. His pen scrawls across the paper haphazardly, mechanically filling out the first form, then moving onto the second. _It will work_ , he thinks, thoughts of his personal life already slipping away.

* * *

He makes it four days before he breaks.

Despite his no-Makoto-thoughts strategy, he’s been thinking about Makoto on and off since the fight. It’s not exactly the perfect denial he’d hoped for, but at least he hasn’t given himself time to really sit down and dwell on what happened. He’s kept busy at work, completing the paperwork from the firework teenagers himself and even going so far as to do a few extra unnecessary interviews with witnesses. Rin tries to take some of the work off his hands, and Gou does her best to send him home early, but he’s determined to keep going. When he’s working, he’s busy, and when he’s busy, he’s not thinking about Makoto.

But on Saturday he wakes up alone again and realizes quite suddenly that he’s completely fucked up.

It’s his fault that Makoto is gone. He’s never been good enough for Makoto, and yet somehow it had taken him this long to mess something up. Sure, things had been tense for a while before the fight, but a tense relationship is better than the all-consuming loneliness of his empty apartment, the cold floor and the silent kitchen and the single toothbrush on the sink.

He misses the way Makoto used to trick him into sleeping in, wrapping himself around Sousuke and pulling him back to bed in the early mornings until they’re five minutes from being late. He misses Makoto’s disgustingly cute bedhead and the way he barely opens his eyes all the way until he’s had his first cup of coffee, his patience and kindness and love.

That love hadn’t been around when he’d last seen Makoto, he’s sure. There had been no patience left, no trace of kindness. Only exhaustion, and a terrible sense of finality.

He’d chased away the best thing he’d ever had, and it’s too much.

* * *

For the second time that week, Rin barges into his apartment.

Sousuke is sitting slumped at the counter, a beer in hand, staring blankly at the fridge and thinking about all the good Makoto used to bring into his life and all the bad he’d brought for Makoto. Of course he’d left. He probably never even planned to stay.

“I know it’s your day off, but this is a new low,” Rin says, taking a seat next to him.

“Whatever,” Sousuke grumbles, taking another sip. His beer has gone mostly flat by now, but the thought of going into the kitchen to grab another one is enough to give him a headache, so he just swallows with a grimace.

“Have you brushed your teeth yet today? Or taken a shower?” Rin looks around the apartment like it might give him an answer, then turns back to Sousuke. “What, have you given up on life already?”

It sounds like a compelling option, but Sousuke has work the next morning, so instead of answering he puts the rim of the bottle to his lips again. Rin sighs, stands, and heads to the kitchen to get a beer of his own.

“I guess if you’re gonna drink the day away, I might as well be there with you,” he says. And as much as Sousuke wants to protest, he knows that having Rin here will probably be a good distraction for him. At the very least, it’ll keep him from having another pity party.

They drink in silence for a little bit, until Sousuke’s bottle is empty and Rin starts getting twitchy.

“What is it?” Sousuke grumbles, setting his empty bottle down and turning to his friend. Rin shrugs.

“Haru told me Makoto’s been acting weird,” he admits. “I thought it might have something to do with whatever’s been going on with you.”

Sousuke sighs, turning back to the counter. “We fought,” he says vaguely. “I haven’t seen him in days.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Rin offers, leaning against the countertop.

“What’s to talk about?” Sousuke replies. “He’s gone. It’s my fault.”

“So? Just go over and apologize or something.”

“That’s not-” He cuts himself off with a huff, shaking his head. “He doesn’t want to see me right now. I should just leave him alone.”

“But that doesn’t fix anything,” Rin argues. “If you messed up, say sorry. If he asks for space, give him space. At least he’ll know you’re ready to apologize.”

Surprisingly enough, what Rin is saying almost sounds logical. But Sousuke shakes his head, stands to grab another beer from the kitchen.

“You can’t just sit around and mope forever,” Rin says, once again quite reasonably. “Makoto might have a right to be mad at you, and he might not--I don’t know the details. Either way, you won’t know unless you get your act together and ask him about it.”

“I will,” Sousuke says. He’s not sure if it’s a lie or not. “I will, just not yet, okay?”

Rin nods, choosing not to ask questions. It’s strange that he’s the levelheaded one out of the two today, but then again, he’s not the one who’s suffering right now.

“You know, when Haru told me that Makoto was acting strangely, I was worried he was going to break up with you or something,” Rin says. _He probably will,_ Sousuke thinks bitterly.

“Can we talk about something else?” he asks, immediately hating how lost his voice sounds in the quiet. Even with Rin here, his apartment still feels much too empty for his tastes.

“Yeah,” Rin says, ducking his head. “So, have I told you about Gou’s dumb concert yet? Apparently it was a big disappointment.”

“The music or the show?”

“The show, obviously.” Rin scoffs. “I don’t think _anyone_ was expecting the music to be good, but apparently the guy wasn’t muscled enough for Gou’s taste. We’ll have to sneak her into the shower room again or something.”

Sousuke smiles just barely. “I’ll leave that to you.”

“In that case, forget it. We’d get found out for sure.”

“You would.”

They stay like that for a while, sitting at the counter and drinking and talking, and sometimes not talking. It’s easier to forget about Makoto when Rin’s going on about his sister or their work or something distracting, but sitting in silence with his friend is still a big improvement from sitting in silence by himself. Rin manages to talk him into taking a shower and brushing his teeth, and when Sousuke comes out of the bathroom he’s met with the smell of bacon and toast.

“If you don’t eat now, you’re gonna regret it tomorrow,” Rin explains, sliding a plate in front of Sousuke.

“When did you become such a mother hen?” Sousuke grumbles, but he eats everything anyway.

Rin stays until three, which is longer than Sousuke had expected, but shorter than he’d hoped. He walks Rin to the door, lingering for a few seconds.

“I’m going out with Kisumi later if you want to join us, but I’m guessing you’re gonna want to stay in tonight?” Rin asks, although it’s less of a question and more of a confirmation. Sousuke shakes his head. As much as he’d like to stick around with Rin and keep distracting himself, he’s definitely not up for going out.

“Alright. I’m expecting to see you at work tomorrow, though,” Rin says.

“I’ll be there,” Sousuke promises wearily.

“And we’re having a surprise party for the chief on Monday after her shift is over, too,” Rin adds, pausing in front of the door. “Will you at least stay for a little while?”

Sousuke shrugs. “We’ll see.”

“Alright, I guess. Take care, okay? Try talking to Makoto, if you feel up to it.”

And with that, Sousuke is on his own again.

He turns back and moves around the apartment robotically, throwing the dishes into the sink and trying not to sink back into his interrupted pity party. His throat feels scratchy, like he might be getting sick, and he’s got a strong temptation to get into bed and fall asleep. Instead, he scrubs at the dirty plates and cups, letting the sponge scratch against his hands until his skin turns pink and irritated. He sets the dishes out to dry, then takes a seat at the kitchen table, phone in hand.

 _Try talking to Makoto._  What kind of advice is that? He wonders, briefly, if Rin’s going through some kind of wildly optimistic phase to make up for all those years of bad attitude. Still, he’s sort of glad that Rin half-forced him to talk about what happened. It doesn’t help much, but having someone there to add some rationality to his thoughts _does_ make him feel a little bit better.

He messed up. That much is obvious, but it still stings to think about. Inviting Makoto over after such a hard day had been his first mistake, and the night had only seemed to go downhill from there. He doesn’t remember exactly what insignificant thing he’d been mad about, only that it had spiraled into a bigger fight that had quickly gotten out of control. He’d accused Makoto of being too clingy, Makoto had snapped back that Sousuke didn’t care enough, and suddenly they were screaming their flaws at each other and the door was slamming closed and-

Something wet falls on Sousuke’s hand. He looks down in surprise, feeling the wetness on his cheeks. Tears drip down his face and fall rhythmically off the point of his chin, splashing across the screen of his phone and running down his hands. He raises his arm and rubs at his cheeks absently, sniffing. He hates crying, especially over things he can’t help, but somehow this time is different. He feels a little lighter, more so than he had after drinking or sleeping the day away or ignoring his emotions.

 _I can’t take back what I’ve said_ , he thinks, staring down at his phone. _And calling Makoto isn’t an option, either. But I can’t let this affect me any more than it already has._

* * *

He goes into work the next day, ready to finish up the last of the work on the fireworks fiasco. The kids who’d been caught setting them off are surprisingly resigned, and there’s a lot less swearing and pouting than there had been before. It’s strange, but the case has already taken up so much of their time that Sousuke decides not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Other than finalizing the last few details of the report, the day passes slowly. Gou gives him the itinerary for Chief Kagari’s surprise party, because apparently “A lot of time went into this, Sousuke!” and “I can’t have you and your lack of enthusiasm messing up the surprise, okay?”

Soon enough, his shift for the day is over. He feels better than he has all week, even a little lighter than he had the night before. He drives home in silence, listening to the rumble of the engine in the still night air. It’s almost tranquill.

His apartment is still depressingly empty when he arrives, but this time he’s expecting the wave of sadness and finality that overtakes him when he steps inside. He surveys the main room, breathing deeply for a few seconds like those articles in the weird zen magazines Gou likes to bring over always tell people to do. It doesn’t work, but he still tries.

After he’s done standing in his doorway and breathing like an idiot, he goes about putting his things away. His jacket goes on the hook by the door, the thermos from earlier in the day goes in the sink to be washed later, and his bag gets set on the kitchen table to be dealt with some other time. Even though the day had gone better than any of the others since Makoto left, he’s still exhausted by the end of it.

The couch looks pretty inviting right about then, so he strides over and takes a seat. There’s not much to do now that he’s home; Makoto had always been the TV-watcher between the two of them, and he normally only goes out when somebody else invites him. He turns on his phone and fiddles around with some social media app Rin and Gou made him install, checks his email and responds to a text from his mom. He means to close the text app and find something else to do, but instead he scrolls up to Makoto’s icon and opens their message chain.

Should he say something? Ask if Makoto has time to sort things out, or if he’s done with Sousuke forever? Or should he give Makoto more space, more time to himself? It’s only been a little over a week since the fight, but with the amount of time they used to spend together, it feels like weeks worth of loss. Maybe Makoto feels the same way. Maybe he’s ready to talk and just doesn’t know how to reach out.

But there’s also a chance that Makoto has forgotten about him by now, a chance that he’d only be a bother. So Sousuke sets his phone down and heads into the kitchen to make himself dinner.

* * *

Chief Kagari’s surprise party turns out to be a big success. Everyone yells “ _Surprise!_ ” at the same time, at least, so that’s a start. And Gou seems pleased with the amount of people that stayed, too. Practically every officer Sousuke knows is hanging around the station, drinking and chatting and wishing Kagari a happy birthday. It’s no surprise that people wanted to stay--everyone loves the Chief--but it’s still a lot to take in.

Sousuke hovers around the edge of the room, drinking and occasionally waving at other officers. Rin finds him about a half-hour in, cup clutched in hand.

“How’s it going?” he asks, leaning against the wall.

“Fine,” Sousuke replies, taking a sip from his own cup. “What about you?”

“I’m good. Just checking in.” Rin side-eyes him for a second. “Have you talked to Makoto yet?”

Sousuke frowns. “I’m fine without talking to him. He doesn’t want to hear from me, anyway.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Rin says, shaking his head. “I know you don’t like getting all emotional, but you’ve got to admit that you miss him. He probably misses you, too.”

Sousuke huffs, raising his cup to his lips and finding it sadly empty. “Need a refill?” he asks, gesturing to Rin’s drink.

“I’m good for now,” Rin says. “Don’t go off and disappear on me, okay?”

With a noncommittal nod, Sousuke heads off into the crowd. He passes Gou talking with a few muscle-bound officers, Kagari filling up a plate at the long table of food, and finally reaches the makeshift kitchen area of the station. He wanders over to one of the non-alcoholic coolers, just about to refill his cup when a noise from outside catches his attention.

He sets his empty cup down on the counter, craning his neck to see out the small window. There’s a small flash of something that almost looks like a lighter, followed by a faint burst of sparks.

“What the hell…” he mutters, heading for the door. Maybe there’s a fuse box outside that’s malfunctioning or something. Whatever it is, he figures it’s worth checking out.

The cool air on his face helps clear his head, and the silence of the world outside is a welcome change to the chatter and clutter of the station. He breathes deeply again, closing his eyes for a second, before turning towards the back of the building where the light had come from.

In hindsight, he probably should have put the pieces together a little faster. Unfortunately, his brain’s already cluttered with the events of the past week, so when he sees the teens from the fireworks incident crouched underneath the window by the kitchen, his first instinct is to ask them “Are you lost?”

All three of them look up, startled, as his voice carries out through the night air. Then suddenly, they all snap into motion. One of them starts fiddling desperately with something in his hand until a small flame flickers to life, just like Sousuke had seen from the kitchen. A lighter?

The other two seem to be trying to guard the first one, springing up to stand in front of him defensively. Sousuke frowns suspiciously, taking a few steps towards them. “What’s going on?” he demands, but he’s cut off by cheers as a sudden burst of sparks lights up the night. It almost looks like…

A firework.

“ _Hey!_ ” he yells, running forward. A second explosion of light to his left almost throws him off balance, having been set into motion by the first one. The teens cheer again, already retreating into the darkness.

He reaches for his flashlight, shining it on the ground quickly. There seem to be different fireworks scattered randomly, connected by trails of gunpowder. One a few feet away from him bursts into life, sending two smaller ones off as well, and it’s right about then that Sousuke realizes that this could actually lead to someone being hurt.

Forgetting the teens, he turns back to the station and runs around to the door. The music seems louder than it had before, and there are more people crowding the halls and rooms. “ _Hey_!” Sousuke yells again, trying to get everyone’s attention, but only a few people turn to look at him. “ _Hey!_ We need to get out of here!” he tries again in vain. Nobody’s listening to him here.

He turns and runs deeper into the party, scanning the sea of faces for Rin’s familiar red hair. People grunt and curse at him when he pushes them aside, but he ignores them. Having a firefighter for a maybe-ex-boyfriend has taught him exactly why those fireworks are illegal, and how quicky things can get out of hand when they’re used.

“Sousuke, what is it?” Rin asks, frowning as Sousuke pushes through the last of the crowd to get to him.

“Those kids--they came back, and they set off some fire hazards behind the building,” Sousuke explains in a rush, breathing heavily. “They’re close to some fuses, too. We need to get out-”

He’s cut off again by the sound of a firework exploding, but this time it’s much bigger. Rin whips around to stare at the place where the noise came from, but Sousuke is already dragging him through the crowd to the door.

“Everyone, we need to evacuate!” he yells in the loudest voice he can muster. “It’s not safe!”

“What’s going on?” Chief Kagari asks, appearing at his side.

“There’s a fire hazard in the back. We need to get out and call the fire department before it’s too late,” Sousuke explains again. “Can you tell everyone to get out? They aren’t listening to me.”

“Yes, I will! Hurry and call the fire department!” Kagari exclaims, already turning towards the crowd. “Excuse me, everyone! I need you to get outside _right now_!”

“ _There’s a fire!_ ” somebody exclaims. Sousuke whips around to see the back of the station illuminated with a large flash, followed by a small trail of smoke rising from the window. He turns back, shoving his phone at Rin.

“Call Makoto,” he says urgently. “I’ll try to put it out.”

“Sousuke, don’t go back in there!” Rin yells, but he’s already being pushed towards the door by a panicked crowd. Sousuke shakes his head gravely, then turns to the closet. There should be a fire extinguisher in there if he pushes past coats and bags and who knows what else. _There!_

He grabs the extinguisher, silently thanking whichever deity chooses to listen to him that the police station is only a few minutes away from the fire department when they’re following traffic rules. There’s already more smoke coming from the back room.

He passes Kagari on his way over, trying to direct people to the exits. More than a few people are trying to put out the flames, but they’ve already started to spread. The table of food is quickly burning away, and the fire is dangerously close to reaching the alcoholic drinks. He takes the pin out of the fire extinguisher, heading for the first patch of fire he sees and spraying heavily. A cloud of white comes out, covering the flames in just a few seconds.

The smell of smoke is thick and heavy in the air as he heads for the next patch of flames. An explosion outside rattles the lights above him and knocks him off balance. He stumbles, catching himself on the counter before he falls.

The smoke is thick now, coming from the cheap tablecloths and paper napkins and abandoned coats and food and everywhere else. Sousuke coughs, crouching and ducking his head as low as he can. His eyes water and sting, but he squints against the tears and sprays at another patch of fire. When did the station get so damn flammable, anyway?

“Sousuke! Be careful!” he hears a voice call out. It sounds like Kagari.

“Go outside!” he yells back, turning blindly to look for the Chief. The fire is spreading still, going at a terrifying rate, and his lungs feel full of smoke. The fire extinguisher is practically useless against flames as high as these, and the metal of the handle is starting to heat uncomfortably under his hands. He throws the thing into the flames, clenching his hands into fists.

“The firemen are almost here,” Kagari coughs, much closer than she’d been before. “Hurry, let’s get out!”

Sousuke grips her shoulder, stumbling in the direction of the front door. The air gets a little more breathable the closer they get to the exit, and he inhales deeply when they’re finally there. He sees officers gathered on the other side of the street, some of them coughing and covered in ash. Rin is darting between them, yelling something Sousuke can barely make out.

“Where’s Gou?!” he cries desperately. “Has anyone seen my sister? _Where is Gou?!_ ”

Sousuke scans the crowd from where he stands, but he can’t see Gou anywhere among the sea of faces. Rin doesn’t seem to be getting the answers he wants, either, since his cries just get more and more panicked.

“Nobody’s seen Gou?!” he yells, turning back to the building with an expression of terror. Sousuke meets his gaze for just a second before he’s turning back to the building, ready to charge back in.

“ _Sousuke!_ Don’t go in there!”

Sousuke glances back for just a second, watching as Makoto jumps out of the still moving firetruck. He looks winded and panicked, and for a second Sousuke just stops to stare at him. It feels like forever since they last saw each other face to face, even though only a week has gone by. But then Rin’s cries break through to him again, and he snaps out of his trance.

“ _Stop_!” Makoto exclaims as he turns towards the building again, reaching out as if to hold him in place. It’s too late. His mind’s already made up.

“Gou!” he yells, springing into action. The front of the building is filled with smoke and flames as well now, but he sprints past them when he hears a faint cry for help in the back of the building.

“Gou? Where-” His lungs protest to the smoke, sending him into another coughing fit. God, how much time has passed? It feels like only a few minutes, but the building is totally engulfed in flames. It’s hard to remember that the roaring fire started with just a few illegal fireworks. “Where are you?!”

“Here!” a familiar voice calls out. He turns towards the sound, runs deeper into the building. Smoke billows from the back of the room, stinging his eyes and making his throat and lungs feel heavy. The air is thick with ash and soot, and it’s _hot_. The sweltering heat is enough to make him dizzy, but he soldiers on, only vaguely aware of the sound of firemen running in after him.

Gou is leaning heavily against a flameless corner of the room, coughing weakly and gasping for breath. The terrible air quality must be a hell of a steroid for her asthma, Sousuke figures, jumping over a broken chair to reach her.

“Hold on!” he yells, picking her up princess style and turning back to the door. A wooden shelf crashes down next to him, and he quickly jumps out of the way, watching as a shower of tiny flames and sparks fall around the splintered wood. Gou coughs violently as he maneuvers his way around charred rubble and roaring flames. His shirt sticks to his chest with sweat, and his skin feels hot and dried out.

The station looks like something out of a nightmare. The walls are illuminated with orange light, charred black from the flames which rage on around them. Abandoned bags and coats lay smouldering in clearer parts of the building, or acting as fodder to the fire in more dangerous areas. Chairs and tables lay overturned around them, and every surface he brushes against is hot. His vision is swimming and his lungs feel like they’re as full of smoke as the building.

“This way!” somebody yells. Blindly, he follows the voice, doing his best not to trip on the clutter strewn about on the floor. He can see the darkness of night through the doorway, a promise of cool, clean air, and he stumbles towards it until they’re finally outside. He gasps in the fresh air, trying to get the suffocated feeling out of his chest. Gou coughs and splutters, wheezing harshly in his arms.

“Gou!” Rin exclaims, leaping towards the door as soon as he sees them. Sousuke sets Gou down and Rin catches her, leading her away from the burning building with shaking hands. Sousuke watches them go blearily, the heat at his back a sharp contrast to the chill of the night air. He realizes suddenly that he’s shaking, too, and stumbles to the other side of the street.

His legs half-buckle as he reaches the grass, and he barely manages to catch himself before he falls face down into the dirt. He breathes deeply again, trying to clear the last of the smoke from his lungs. Even after his chest is free of smoke, he keeps drawing in deep, even breaths, until his hands stop shaking and his heart stops pounding in his chest. He loses track of time, barely processing the fire being extinguished in front of him or the sudden chill of the night air against his skin.

And suddenly, there’s a hand gripping his shoulder and Makoto’s face appears in front of him, apple-green eyes shining even in the dim light.

“Sousuke…” Makoto almost whispers, voice shaking. “Sousuke, why would you- Why did- I thought I lost you!”

The tears that had gathered in his eyes fall, running down his soot-covered cheeks and dripping onto the ground below them. Subconsciously, almost instinctively, Sousuke reaches out and cups Makoto’s face with his hand, wiping the droplets away and smudging the ash. “Makoto,” he says, hardly letting himself believe that Makoto is _here_ , crying over him like he's something that actually matters only a few inches away.

“ _What were you thinking?!_ ” Makoto cries, glaring through his tears. “Running back into a burning building? You could have died!”

“I- Gou was still in there,” Sousuke protests, shaking his head slightly. “I couldn’t just leave her in there.”

“That’s _my_ job!” Makoto brushes Sousuke’s hand away angrily. “What if you hadn’t come out? Do you think I could have lived with myself, knowing I was just a little too slow to save you?”

“I wasn’t thinking about that,” Sousuke says, drawing his hand back to his side.

“You weren’t thinking at all!” Makoto exclaims, but he seems to deflate a second later. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I couldn’t bear it if you’d- if I’d been too late.”

“I didn’t-” Sousuke clears his throat, swallowing. “I didn’t know that you’d care that much. After everything that happened, I just… didn’t know.”

Makoto stares at him in distress. “ _Of course_ I would care. I love you, after all. That hasn’t changed.”

“I thought you hated me,” Sousuke admits, dropping his head.

“I don’t hate you,” Makoto says softly. “I left because I was angry, and I don’t regret it. Having some time to think everything over by myself was good for me, even if it was hard at first.”

“I missed you,” Sousuke says. “I miss you.”

Makoto smiles sadly, sniffing. “I missed you, too. I wanted to reach out and try to talk to you about the fight, but I couldn’t figure out what to say. I tried to figure it out, but I couldn’t. I still don’t know.”

“I’ll wait,” Sousuke says, looking up at Makoto. “For as long as you need. If you want to talk it out, I’ll wait for you to figure out what to say.”

Makoto stares at him frustratedly. “Even if we apologize for the things we said, it won’t help. You know how tense things were before we blew up at each other. Even if we work this fight out, we’ll keep fighting, and we’ll stop trusting each other. and-”

“I won’t let that happen. We can fix this.” Sousuke reaches down and takes Makoto’s hand in his. Makoto’s fingers are warm as they curl up to intertwine with his own. “We can figure this out.”

Makoto closes his eyes, letting a few more tears spill down his face. “I’m scared,” he admits. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t lose me,” Sousuke says, using his other arm to pull Makoto closer to him. “It will be okay.”

“Okay.” Makoto leans against him quietly, letting his breath ghost evenly across Sousuke’s cheek. “Okay.”

 _Okay_ , Sousuke thinks, wrapping his arm around Makoto’s back and pulling him closer. _We will figure this out. We will fix this_.

He takes a deep breath, and lets it out.


End file.
